Step Scandal - Part 3 (2 page)

I logged into my Facebook account that afternoon. It’d been weeks since I’d checked it, but I needed something to keep my mind off anything but real life. Facebook always made me zone out, and sometimes I could spend hours clicking and reading and forgetting how shitty my current situation was as I focused on other people’s lives. I loved how social media had become a highlight reel for the things people wanted you to believe about them.

But on the upper right hand side of my page, rested an article boasting that Hayden McDaniel and Harper Bliss were back together. Against my better judgment, I clicked on it.

A website with a whole page full of photos of the two of them walking down a sidewalk. Them kissing. Him helping her get into her car. She was smiling in one of the photos as she looked straight into the camera.

Either she was acting or she was fucking with me. There was no damn way she was back with him. She’d just left my apartment in tears that morning.

I had to know. I had to know why even if it didn’t make a damn bit of difference. I grabbed my phone and texted Harper.

WHY ARE YOU WITH HIM???

I chomped on my nails as I awaited her response, which came no more than ten long minutes later.

YOU DON’T GET TO CARE ABOUT ME ANYMORE.

She may have had a point. I’d released her back into the river, like a fish that could serve me no purpose any longer. Sent her swimming away with a bloody cut where my hook had been. I didn’t get to care about her anymore, but I cared anyway.

I grabbed my truck keys off the table and headed outside. I knew exactly where I had to go and what I had to do.

***

The shop where I worked didn’t open for a couple more hours, which was perfect. That’s all the time I needed. I grabbed a sheet of paper and sketched out an anchor, exactly like the one I’d drawn for her that hot summer night when we were younger; the same tattoo she’d had placed just below her hipbone.

A half hour later, I’d prepped my skin and gloved my right hand. Firing up the irons, I pressed the tiny needle into the canvas flesh, inking the underside of my left forearm. It burned like hell, like a hot lighter being pressed against my skin, but I didn’t stop until it was done.

I pulled the machine away when it was complete – an anchor wrapped in sailor’s rope. The tattoo artist with commitment phobia had finally chosen his newest tattoo. I’d told her to anchor herself to something solid once before, and in a fucked up way, I was anchoring myself to her. I’d never stop loving her, even if we could never be together.

I rotated my arm to the left and then the right, admiring my work and wishing more than anything that she were there to see it.

“Why are you crying, honey?” Elijah asked. On my way home, I’d made a beeline for his place. I didn’t want to be alone, not after the day I’d just had.

“I stopped by Xavier’s this morning,” I said, wiping a tear. “He doesn’t want to go through with this anymore.”

“I kind of figured that when he stopped returning your calls.” Elijah pursed his lips and spoke out of the side of his mouth as he rubbed my back.

I lay on my back, stretching out on his cushy sofa and grabbing onto a throw pillow. The velvety cushion felt soft against my wet cheek as it dried away my tears. “I loved him, Elijah. I’ve loved him since I was eighteen.”

Elijah lowered himself slowly onto the spot next to my feet. “Shit, Harps. I had no idea. I never would’ve proposed this whole faux scandal had I known. You know that, right?”

I nodded, breathing in the bland fragrance of the upholstery under my nose.

“Does he know you love him?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Maybe you should tell him?”

I rolled my eyes. “It won’t change anything. We can’t be together and there are a million reasons why.”

“Yeah, but if he doesn’t know you love him, that might change things. Don’t you think?”

I lifted a single shoulder, not finding the energy to shrug both of them. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to cry and pout, and I wanted to indulge in a couple hours of self-pity before forcing myself to move on.

Elijah scrolled through his phone as he sat next to me. “Look at that. The divorce between Conrad Fox and Sharon Bliss is officially final. Oh, and they had a pre-nup. Smart people. Makes things a little less messy. Guess that means you and Xavier are officially no longer steps anymore. That’s good, right?”

I sat up, drying my eyes with the back of my hand. “I doubt it would change anything.”

“I don’t see anything about you and Xavier anymore. Everyone’s moved on. Looks like the biggest news now is the latest Kardashian feud.”

“Right back to being chopped liver,” I laughed. “How fitting.”

“Aw, you’ll never be chopped liver to me,” Elijah said, leaning his head onto my shoulder. He slipped his arm around me and kissed my forehead. “Go tell him you love him, Harps. You’ve got nothing to lose.”

***

I promised myself I’d never be back there again. When I left his apartment that morning after yelling at him, with tears streaming down my face, I told myself I’d do everything in my power to avoid him at all costs.

It was over. The thing between us that was never supposed to happen in the first place was over.

But that was this morning.

The chirping of the crickets and the swarm of bugs that flittered above the light outside his apartment door on the hot summer night that mimicked the one we’d shared before, seemed to be a sign. I’d knocked once and then again but no answer.

“So much for trying,” I mumbled.

And then I turned around and bumped right into him. Nothing but brawn and muscles and dark hair, he towered above me, his piercing gaze forcing weakness through my knees and knocking the wind out of me.

“H-hi,” I stammered.

“You looking for me?” he asked.

I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dryer than the Sahara. I nodded.

“Come inside.”

I followed him in, my feet firmly cemented by the door in case he completely rejected me and I had to leave as soon as possible before I humiliated myself even further.

“I know that this might come as a surprise to you,” I said, holding my head high and attempting the impossible task of slowing my heartbeat. “But, I just came to tell you that…”

A square of white gauze was taped over the inside of his left forearm.

“What’s that?” I stepped toward him, grabbing his arm and pulling it into me. “Did you get a tattoo? I thought you had commitment issues or some shit like that.”

He peeled back the tape and gauze slowly, centimeter by centimeter revealed a picture of an anchor wrapped in rope in done in fresh ink into his flesh.

“It – it matches mine.” I swallowed the lump in my throat before daring to look up into his eyes.

He nodded as I released his arm from my hold. “It’s an exact replica.”

“What does it mean?”

“What do you think it means,” he huffed. He stepped into my space, squaring his shoulders with mine and cupping my face in his hand. “I’m anchoring myself to you. You’re solid. You’re real.”

“But I thought…?” I didn’t have a chance to finish my sentence before he claimed my lips with his. A heat ignited in my core as my lips caught fire from the heat of his mouth on mine.

“I love you, Harper,” he whispered as he came up for air. “I always have.”

“Me too. I love you too,” I admitted. “I was actually coming here to tell you that tonight.”

“Being together,” he said. “It’s going to be complicated. And it won’t always pretty. You and me, people won’t always understand us. It might feel like us against the world most days, but the ones who really love us will eventually understand. And fuck everyone else.”

His lips claimed my again as his hands slid down my sides, cupping my ass and lifting me up until my legs gripped around his hips. He carried me back to his room, throwing me on his messy bed and crawling over top of me. Xavier’s lips branded my skin with kisses as his hands tore away every article of clothing I’d shown up in.

Within minutes, we were both naked, our lips tasting one another in the darkness of his apartment bedroom. He rolled on top of me, his hardness teasing my arousal as we brushed against one another. The hint of moonlight that trickled in through the break in his curtain windows illuminated the scabbed anchor tattoo healing on his forearm.

I smiled as I remembered what he’d once told me about tattoos. They were permanent to him. They never came off no matter what. Once they were on him, they were there forever.

He had branded himself with me. We were anchored to one another. For all time.

“Stop staring at that thing and kiss me,” he commanded, gripping my face with his hands and pulling my lips onto his. “I fucking love you, Harper.”

THE END!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rossi St. James is a twenty-something young woman with a passion for Oreos, crazy, twisted stories, and hiking trails with her two yellow labs, Sunny and Cloudy. When she’s not writing, you can probably find her scouring Pinterest for inspiration for her next book. (That’s pretty much all she uses Pinterest for anyway, as Rossi St. James cannot cook, sew, or craft).

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PAST

“Shh…”

I peeled my eyes open. A shadowy figure lurked over my bed, arms outstretched and pulling me out from under the warmth of my covers.

“Mom?” I whispered.

“Hush.” As the figure pulled me closer, I recognized my mother’s scent: cigarette smoke, Charlie perfume, and the permanent cheap beer smell that was always on her breath. “Be
quiet
, Everly.”

The moon shined in through the paper-thin curtains of the tiny trailer bedroom I shared with my two stepbrothers, Gray and Little Nash. Space was at a premium in the vintage blue singlewide the five of us shared, but home was home. It didn’t bother me as much as it bothered Gray, but he was older. He knew we deserved better.

“Where are we going?” I whispered as my mom set me down. At twelve years old I was too heavy for her to carry me very far. I glanced back at my brothers, the only siblings I’d known for the bulk of my existence. Little Nash was ten and Gray was fifteen.

My hand reached out in the dark as I followed my mom out of my room, and it stopped as it found the splintered hole in the door where the knob used to reside. Big Nash had kicked the door in the night before in a drunken rage. Gray moved the dresser to block the door to protect Little Nash and me, but it only served to make Big Nash even angrier. Little Nash and I hid in the closet, behind the broken door that was barely hanging on its hinges, and when it was all over, we emerged to find Gray perched on the foot of my bed, catching his breath and holding a shaking hand over his purple, swollen eye as blood trickled from his left nostril.

He always took the beatings for us.

I planted my feet in the hallway, demanding an answer from my mother as my heart raced with the jolt of adrenaline still coursing through me from being woken in the middle of the night. “Where’re we going?”

I glanced back toward the bedroom where my brothers were quietly sleeping, none the wiser.

“I want to say goodbye,” I said, crossing my arms. Mom grabbed the crook of my elbow and yanked my arms apart, jerking me so hard my arm nearly came out of the socket.

My eyes struggled to adjust to the dark of the window-less hallway. Mom lowered her face to mine and gritted her teeth. “We’re leaving. Do
not
make a sound.”

The bone-chilling look she gave me was the kind I knew I’d never forget as long as I lived. I knew she and Big Nash were having problems, but it was nothing new. They fought like cats and dogs since the day they met. The constant screaming and yelling in our trailer was normal. It was the way we lived. Big Nash was a drunk with a temper, and when he was done beating on her, he’d always come looking for Gray.

Though Gray was just a kid of fifteen, he was already taller than his daddy. He was going to be a behemoth someday, and I just hoped one day he’d get to clock Big Nash so hard it’d send him sailing across the room. Maybe then Big Nash would never touch him again.

My mother’s long nails dug into the flesh of my arm as she led me towards the creaky screen door. Two packed bags rested against the wall. She hoisted one over her bony shoulder and shoved the other into my arms.

I turned around, scanning the dark living room and trying to take a mental snapshot. We weren’t coming back, that much I knew. I inhaled the scent of the place I’d called home since I was seven years old. Stale cigarettes. Cheap, cinnamon candle. Dirty carpet.

Snoring in the broken armchair in the corner was Big Nash, passed out drunk. I glanced back at my mother who studied him for a second, as if she were wondering just how passed out he was. He’d been known to come flying out of a dead sleep and start wailing on whoever was in his vicinity before. Mom called them his night terrors. They always seemed to happen the most when he was drinking Jack Daniels. She took a deep breath and opened the screen door with a painfully slow-motioned push, and then she nodded towards our old Buick that was sitting at the end of the driveway.

Orange glow peeked over the horizon and mixed with lavender clouds. I’d never seen such a pretty sky before. I turned to look at our little blue trailer with the leaky tin roof one last time, my eyes landing on the window to the bedroom I shared with the boys who were my stepbrothers, my
family
, for as long as I could remember.

“Everly! Get in the car!” my mother yelled, though her voice was still very much a whisper.

I threw my backpack over the back of the seat and shut the door. She popped the shifter into neutral and pushed the rusting Buick to the end of the street. She was a skinny little thing, but no one ever accused Tammy-Dawn Conners of being weak.

Only slightly breathless, she climbed in and started the car up. The muffler popped, startling us both, and my mother’s hands flew to her chest like she was about to have a heart attack. Her eyes darted to the rearview, as if she were making sure Big Nash wasn’t coming after us.

I stayed quiet, taking everything in. The night before, Gray had tucked me in with a promise that he’d take me to the municipal pool on Saturday. Had I known it would be the last time we’d be around each other, I’d have done something special for him. He was always thinking of us, and it occurred to me in that moment, as we drove far away from Bolton, Nevada, that no one ever thought about Gray.

My breath caught in my chest, and I stifled the sobs that tried to force their way past my lips as I mourned the loss of my big brother. My protector. My angel. The only person who ever truly looked out for me.

“Everly, stop crying,” my mom huffed as her bony hands gripped the wheel. “We Conners girls are tough. We don’t cry. We do what we have to do and we get the fuck over it.”

“I-I just wanted to say goodbye to my brothers,” I sniffled, wiping my eyes on the back of my hand.

She scrunched her face. “They weren’t even really your brothers.”

I faced the window to my right, unable to look at her as if that was supposed to make me feel better.

“I was never married to Big Nash, you know that,” she said. She pulled down the visor as she drove, checking out the remnants of a shiner on her left eye. Big Nash had socked her in the face the week before, and Mom was a very vain woman considering her lifestyle. She was what I’d heard the other kids at school refer to as “white trash pretty”. Her full lips and perfectly straight teeth paired with her round, aqua-colored eyes were a stark contrast against her tanned, leathered skin and thinning blonde hair. She’d aged considerably over the past few years as she rode on the back of Big Nash Daughtry’s bike in the scorching Nevada sun. She looked much older than her thirty years. “I shoulda known better than to get involved with those biker gangs.”

She popped the visor back and held her shoulders high as her eyes focused on the road. We turned towards the highway that led out of town.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m driving west. We’ll stop when it feels right.”

That was exactly how we ended up in Bolton, Nevada. Mom said it just “felt right”, though I suspect it had to do with the green-eyed Casanova hitting on her at the bar she snuck off to the night I was fast asleep in the motel she’d rented.

That green-eyed Casanova happened to be Big Nash Daughtry, and it didn’t take long for him to sink his meat hooks right into her lonely, desperate, single-mom heart.

“Just sleep, Everly. Stop asking so many questions. You’re making my head hurt,” Mom said, her voice rushed and sharp as if she couldn’t keep her thoughts straight. “We’ll stop for breakfast in a couple hours once we get to the California state line.”